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From the editorial advisory board: Trust but verify?

Posted:
02/02/2013 01:00:00 AM MST

We live in an increasingly Photoshopped world — one where many of our “personal” interactions are done in a virtual world. Do you think it's making us more gullible? Or more cynical? From pop singers accused of lip-syncing at the inauguration to football heroes who were either tricked or not tricked into a false relationship — not to mention athletes who use performance enhancing drugs — much of our lighter news these days seems to focus on what and what not to believe. What do you think?

I have become almost perfectly cynical. I can't count, according to my email inbox, how many times I have won a lottery or been the beneficiary of an unbelievable deal from Walmart or a small foreign government. I've stared at thousands of photos, and read as many stories on Facebook, Yahoo and MSN. I can't tell the true from the false. When you mix black paint with white paint, you get gray paint. The world of "news" has become a million shades of gray. The internet, today's newspaper, has become entertaining noise.

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There was a time, before the internet, when news came from newspapers and from 15- or 30-minute news programs on radio and TV. Back then, journalists did the research before they reported a story. Now, journalists track down stories after they have gone viral. Witness Manti Te'o. In this case, the "journalist" was the annoying Dr. Phil. Yet I doubt that we have the whole story on Manti, or that we ever will.

A recent example comes from the Omaha World Herald. A local iPhone photo had gone viral on Reddit and Twitter in a matter of hours. It shows pillars of fire emerging from the middle of Howard Street in old downtown Omaha. The photographer was unknown. Subsequently, a World Herald reporter spent the better part of a day locating the photographer. The photo was real.

Journalists are now archaeologists, digging through rubble in search of artifacts.

Manti T'eo was taken in by a skilled paramour and narcissist who seemed unable to make enough of his own authentic life so he engineered a fake female identity and sold it to a genuine star in a cruelly selfish prank-romance.

Not everyone is born with a "buyer beware" gene but in today's online world we need it.

I've been fascinated to befriend a blogger who writes beautifully under a fanciful nom-de-plume. She is engaging and seemingly transparent in her writings shared through email, Facebook and her blog. Many essentials of her story can be sussed out over time, and because she's given salient details about the life and untimely death of a close relative, in a few Google searches I confirmed that relative's existence and her family name. No harm no foul -- it's her right to be coy online. However, when she sought my advice on her way of drawing investors to her book project, I gently said that her nom de plume should be a stumbling block to any investor.

She replied that she was operating under her birth certificate name.

Sigh. I let it go and retreated to more distant engagement.

Like Te'o's paramour she seems to be invested in a glorified identity that is as charming as it is self-centered. Such people are to be handled with care not only because they can be dangerous frauds, but also because they live out a radical human tragedy.

These days it is fun to try to figure out what is real and what has been done to fool us. Seeing was once believing. Now I am unsure about what I see, hear and smell. With digital animation and the wonders of chemistry I struggle to discover what is real, what is fake. Years ago in Wisconsin we mixed yellow food coloring into our white oleomargarine to make it look like real butter. Some athletes use steroids to make their bodies look and function differently than what might be called natural.

Artificial flavors like strawberry, grape, and banana are added to some processed foods to make us think they are real fruit. Food labels that deceive include "all natural," "fruit drinks," "made with whole grain." Turkey bacon tastes like real bacon but it isn't real pork bacon. Makeup produces an artificial complexion and plastic surgery, implants and Botox help the user depart from some degree of reality. Peroxide has become popular to transform people into blondes.

As an elephant follows a woman through her kitchen in a TV ad, I am amused by this computerized deception. Trouble is I forget what is being advertised. Some faking of reality provides entertainment as we see at Disney World.

In the movie "Life of Pi" those agitated Bengal tigers looked real to me. Then I began to wonder. According to Bill Westenhofer, visual effects supervisor, 14 percent were real, the other 86 percent were digital.

When someone says we are living in a "Photoshopped world," they mean that we are facing a world of fast-moving technologies, where things aren't always what they appear to be.

Unfortunately, efforts to confuse us is nothing new in our culture. New technologies are just newer and better tools for doing so.

It is a conundrum. We are being flooded with information, data, pictures, words, as never before. And part of it may be manipulated. How well are we being trained to determine what is true and what is false?

While there are those who accept everything the technologies make available and ask no questions, others simply abhor and dismiss the new technologies and their impact. Still many are sitting on the fence wondering what the future will bring.

It is clear, however, that a lot of the stuff reaching us through the new technologies has a bias, a slant, ulterior motives, prejudices. And it is often meant to misinform or perhaps misdirect us. In my opinion, we need to become less gullible and question what is reaching us, regardless of where it comes from.

Those who oppose the inroads of newer technologies point to a long list of things gone wrong.

For my part, however, I thank the Internet and Skype for strengthening my connections with family and friends. In the past I wrote them a couple of letters each year. The new technology has made us better relatives and friends.

What about 2010's "recovery summer?" In light of Wednesday's news that the economy actually contracted in the last quarter of 2012, and Thursday's news that the president is disbanding his "Jobs Council" all the rosy economic scenarios and emphasis on growth that the president and his supporters trumpeted in the run up to the election seem now to be nothing but smoke and mirrors.

What about the impact on unemployment statistics of 8.5 million people having left the official labor force in the last four years? Makes one wonder what tricks might have been employed to mysteriously drop the unemployment rate two-tenths of a percent, to below 8 percent, just before the election. Predictably, its heading back up!

What about our U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice being paraded out on the Sunday news shows to state that the Benghazi attack was not premeditated and was instead a spontaneous reaction to a B-grade anti-Islamic film? Why was Susan Rice the front person on this situation anyway? And what about Nancy Pelosi's famous comment that we would have to pass "Obamacare" to see what was in it? Rabbit in the hat?

The pattern is obvious. Manti Te'o's romance and Beyonce's lip-syncing, and all the rest are just playing follow the leader.

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